I love me some new Barenaked Ladies tunes! The single (do they call them that anymore) is an Ed tune. Drool!
And 3 songs for only .99, such a deal!
Tuesday was always my favorite day from about 1984 when I got my first car, til about 1998 when I left my job at the “record” store. When I first got my car, I would drive to the Strawberries in Nashua, NH every Tuesday after school to see what new records were in. I even remember making my mother drive me down that Tuesday in 1983 when the Police’s Synchronicity was released, before I had my licence.
After high school, I quit my job at the local supermarket when a new mall opened and I got offered a job at the record store. The manager was a wonderful guy who taught me so much about music and introduced me to artists that are still my favorites today, like Kate Bush and the Jam, and was filled will all the useless liner notes and other trivia that only a music geek would know.
When I went off to college, my boss had me transferred to the store in downtown Boston, and the manager there was almost as cool as the previous one, but was so stressed out he was thrilled to have me there so he could finally have a day off. He left the store in my hands and went away for the weekend, and the next night the store was robbed and I was held up at gunpoint and tied up in the back of the store with some of the other employees. Quite an adventure! I kept working at the store throughout college, then moved to California and the chain didn’t have any stores close to where I was living, so I went to work at the rival chain. I didn’t last there long – their style wasn’t like mine so I didn’t fit in. A few months later, I had a day job, but decided to apply at another local chain for my music fix. I worked there for 6 years until I met my soon to be husband and needed more free time than cash and left that job.
I loved Tuesdays. It was like you got a Christmas or Birthday every week. Each Monday night or Tuesday morning you would open all the boxes full of new releases, prepare the end caps for the new releases, and sticker everything to put out first thing the next morning, or depending on the workload during the day, we could start putting stuff out after closing the store. I loved walking the aisles with a pile of CDs on my arm sliding them into their slots, getting out the DYMO for creating new cards for new artists or artists that hadn’t had anything in the store for a while.
Even if there wasn’t anything in the boxes that appealed to me, I still learned so much about artists or bands that I didn’t know, which makes me a killer player on any kind of music trivia game, as long as it’s 1999 or earlier, that is. I guess there’s a musical stunting when we reach the end of the time when we are psyched about music and just become regular normal consumers. After I stopped working at the store, I lost track of what’s new and only began to hear about music from other bands, web sites, newsgroups, listservs, etc.
I get the iTunes new music Tuesday emails. It’s not the same as cracking the tape on the box of CDs on Monday and putting aside the CD to be bought on Tuesday, opening the jewel box and pulling out the liner notes and looking for people you know, the inside jokes that you wonder if you know the meaning of, the guest artists who have shown up. Nothing has been able to replace that yet.
On a related note, anyone out there remember looking for secret messages around the label on LPs? The Clash had some good ones, and Adam and the Ants. Any others you can think of?

A couple of years ago, she was someone who (whom? why don’t I know this? NH Grammar failure!) I thought should have a blog. Not because her writing was bad, but because of the gushing that followed each posting. This was shortly after I started knitting, before I found my home on certain mailing lists because of being annoyed by others. So, she did finally get a blog, and I didn’t actually read it for a long while, mostly because I hadn’t discovered the beauty that is RSS yet, and blogrolling was just reminding me of how much I haven’t actually updated this blog.
Eventually I found a nice newsfeed client, then switched to Bloglines since it’s more portable, and added her blog to my feed and once and a while checked in but mostly ignored it because I tend to get distracted by shinier things. Like, two weeks ago it was Harry Potter.
So there I am at BORDERS, and I am looking at the “Buy 2 Get 1 Free” table for some summer reading, and I come across this book (by the way, the other purchases in this transaction were and , and ) and I thought – hey, that name sounds familiar…! So I picked it up and laughed out loud and brought it home with me.
Some folks in my local Stich n’ Bitch mentioned going to her book signing, but it was on a Monday which isn’t usually a convenient day for skipping the carpool, but the huz wanted to do some errand that made us have to drive separately and so then I could go. When I got to the store, I ran into some other people from my SnB, not the ones who I expected, which is normal for California.
Do you ever see someone out of context and completely know that you know them, but when you see them, you have no idea who they are? This happened to me at knit cafe yesterday. This woman is talking to me, I completely know who she is but can’t figure out who she is… Finally she says “Skylar‘s mom” . Oh, I am so embarrased. Especially since I was just mentioning how cool it was that Skylar and her mom started coming to SnB.
Anyway, we got that all sorted and had a great time at the book signing. Stephanie is a wonderful woman, just as approachable as she seems by reading her blog and book, and I had a really good time. Retelling some of the stories to my huz the next morning has him even more convinced that I am actually Canadian – I even knew the answer to Stephanie’s secret question to check for authentic Canadians. He accuses me of it all the time, what with the BNL and GBS fandom. Oh and the Frü-fannage.
So this picture is of Stephanie holding up a sign that says “Happy Birthday Sue” so Sue, there you are. No one seemed to know who Sue was, but Stephanie can follow directions. Sorry Stephanie, that you were so cruelly tricked by the Knitting Factory.

Seen here: Variety.com – Fox loves the Ladies(sub req’d) The BNL might be getting their own show on FOX! Pilot has been ordered.

The whole reason the computer thing was bugging me was that I want to fill up my iPod and every time I got half-way through a disk the computer would re-boot and what a pain it is to figure out where the rip left off?!! I use MusicMatch to rip because it’s faster, then link to iTunes for the import. But ooh, I am happy now, between last night and today, I have ripped all my cds from Paul Weller, the Jam, Tears for Fears, Michael Penn, and Kraftwerk. Before tonight I had only 7.1 days worth of music (2446 songs). I have room for 30 more GB of music, and I am not even close to ripping my entire CD collection. And I am not being picky, I am ripping whole cds, not just the good tracks.
And did you know this is back? I had no idea it was back in print (the last song on this otherwise NEW!!! album) and I just bought it off iTunes because I know I will like it. And I am listening right now and I do love it. It’s one of those concept albums, like Autobahn. And for the record… I loved this song long before I met my Huz… I had it on a mix tape I had taped off the radio in what.. 1986 maybe? Of WJUL which I could get on good days up in my New Hampster bedroom, all the way from ULowell. Good times… :sniff:

A story about a year ago heard on NPR mentioned that the military was looking into creating a ‘digital bugle’ which could be used at a military funeral when they can’t find a bugler. A listener (and both my hub and me!) was astonished, and decided to do something about it. Especially now that they are unfortunately needed almost daily.
Listen here: NPR : Electronic Bugles Incite ‘Bugler Backlash’